Inconveniences Rightly Considered

III. Convo

  to raise again Our Spirit's groaning out

  and in.

  I get no hint of this event until

  my puppy quickens my thinker from haze,

  she draws me out of reverie with her

  chomping chomping chomping

  what is she chomping?

  chomping chomping

  and I come so close to find

  grey yarn

  of bunny gut strung out

  across wide-open little belly,

  the way she opens silver packages at Christmas...

  How long had it sat there rotting,

  and

  II. Meal

  (is it always that color?)

  III. Convo

  My dog

  desaturated noodles

  II. Meal

  (I don't think them're noodles, bubba)

  III. Convo

  in her lips

  that look like

  "What? Is something wrong?"

  Past Me had need of answers

  for he remembers smells:

  formaldehyde

  the smell he smells each time a soul

  unwittingly uncaps a blackened,

  inch-thick, dubbed 'permanent' marker

  II. Meal

  (black, please, no cream)

  III. Convo

  the smell of my mother and her nursing

  classmates spreading a cat upon a metal shelf

  II. Meal

  (though stones, rocks, marble slabs would do or cedar planks. I like them served on cedar, but whatever you have is fine)